Engineering and design students are often required to evaluate their products against user requirements, but frequently, these requirements are abstracted from the user or context of use rather than coming from actual user and context data. Abstraction of user requirements makes it difficult for students to empathize with the eventual user of the product or system they are designing. In previous research, Design Heuristics have been shown to encourage exploration of design solutions spaces at the initial stages of design processes. This study combines use of Design Heuristics in an engineering classroom context with a method designed to connect students with an understanding the context of the user, product use setting, and sociocultural milieu. We adapted an existing method, the cognitive walkthrough, for use in an engineering education context, renaming it the empathic walkthrough. In this study, this method was revised and extended to maximize empathy with the end user and context, using these insights to promote a more situated form of idea development using the Design Heuristics cards. We present several case studies of students using this method to expand their notion of situated use, demonstrating how this method may have utility for importation into engineering contexts. Our early testing has indicated that this method stimulates empathy on the part of the student for the design context within which they are working, resulting in a richer narrative that foregrounds problems that a user might encounter.
Chapter 12: Cognitive models
from
Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale (2004).
Human-Computer Interaction, third edition.
Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-239864-8.
http://www.hcibook.com/e3/
What is the Nature and Intended Use of Design Methods?colin gray
Interest in the codification and application of design methods is rapidly growing as businesses increasingly utilize “design thinking” approaches. However, in this uptake of design methods that encourage designerly action, the ontological status of design methods is often diffuse, with contradictory messages from practitioners and academics about the purpose and desired use of methods within a designer’s process. In this paper, I explore the paradoxical nature of design methods, arguing for a nuanced view that includes the (often) conflicting qualities of prescription and performance. A prescriptive view of methods is drawn from the specification of methods and their “proper” use in the academic literature, while a performative view focuses on in situ use in practice, describing how practitioners use methods to support their everyday work. The ontological characteristics and practical outcomes of each view of design methods are considered, concluding with productive tensions that juxtapose academia and practice.
Creativity "Misrules": First Year Engineering Students’ Production and Percep...colin gray
We report four cases from a larger study, focusing on participants’ self-identified “most creative” concept in relation to their other concepts. As part of an ideation session, first-year engineering students were asked to create concepts for one of two engineering design problems in an 85-minute period, and were exposed to one of two different forms of fixation. Participants worked as individuals, first using traditional brainstorming techniques and generating as many ideas as possible. Design Heuristics cards were then introduced, and students were asked to generate as many additional concepts as possible. After the activity, participants ranked all of the concepts they generated from most to least creative. Representative cases include a detailed analysis of the concept that each participant rated as “most creative,” idea generation method used, and relative location and relationship of the concept to other concepts generated by that participant. Across four cases, we identified a number of characteristic “misrules” or misconceptions, revealing that first-year students judge creativity in their concepts in ways that could inhibit their ability to produce truly novel concepts. We present Design Heuristics as a tool to encourage the exploration of creative concept pathways, empowering students to create more novel concepts by rejecting misrules about creativity.
Meaning Reconstruction as an Approach to Analyze Critical Dimensions of HCI R...colin gray
A critical tradition has taken hold in HCI, yet research methods needed to meaningfully engage with critical questions in the qualitative tradition are nascent. In this paper, we explore one critical qualitative research approach that allows researchers to probe deeply into the relationships between communicative acts and social structures. Meaning reconstruction methods are described and illustrated using examples from HCI research, demonstrating how social norms can be traced as they are claimed and reproduced. We conclude with implications for strengthening rigorous critical inquiry in HCI research, including the use of extant critical research methods to document transparency and thick description.
“Why are they not responding to critique?”: A student-centered construction o...colin gray
The crit is a dominant public instructional event, and has often been studied through the lens of institutional power, through the perspective of the instructor. In this study, we analyze the classroom presentations and critiques of three teams in a design-focused human-computer interaction graduate program, calling attention to other modes of student-generated critique that occur alongside the traditional formal conversation. These critiques comprise, in parallel: 1) a public oral critique led by the instructor alongside student questions; 2) a critique document collaboratively authored in Google Docs by experienced students; and 3) backchannel chat by experienced students via Google Doc messaging. Through the complex interactions between these modes of parallel critique, multiple levels of interaction and conversational behavior emerge, with experienced students shaping each type of feedback and use of technological tools. We present and analyze cases drawn from the teams through computer-mediated communication and critical pedagogy perspectives to characterize these interactions, documenting how experienced students take on different typifications—or understandings of role expectations within the conversation—which mediate the instructional qualities of the critique. We introduce three typifications: the relaxed professional in backchannel chat, poised professional in the Google Doc, and instructional tutor in the physical classroom space.
Inverting Critique: Emergent Technologically-Mediated Critique Practices of D...colin gray
Critique is the primary method of assessment used in design education, yet is not well understood apart from traditional structures of institutional power and faculty initiation. In this study, we analyze the classroom presentations and critiques of eleven teams in a design-focused human-computer interaction graduate program, focusing on an emergent instructional design for technologically-mediated critique created by experienced students serving as peer mentors. Initial analysis suggests complex interaction between multiple modes of critique beyond the “traditional” critique: 1) public oral critique led by faculty, 2) a critique document authored in Google Docs by experienced students, and 3) backchannel chat in Google Docs by experienced students. These interactions indicate instructional affordances for including many simultaneous users within an existing critique infrastructure. Implications of this instructional design for expanding the capacity of physical critique events and the role of participation in student learning are considered.
Supporting Idea Generation Through Functional Decomposition: An Alternative F...colin gray
This study explored how guided ideation can support concept initiation and development. We conducted a set of in-class activities in a junior-level industrial design studio at a large Midwestern US university with 20 students. Participants generated concepts individually while working on a previously defined problem. They performed a functional decomposition of existing concepts, then used a self-selected function to rapidly generate ideas in three stages over 45 minutes, supported by Design Heuristics cards. Through analysis of eight cases, we found that generated concepts were consistent with the originally defined function. The students’ ability to create a range of solutions increased over time, and concepts became more divergent through each of the three stages. Use of Design Heuristics changed, beginning as a tool for divergent concept generation (ideation), moving to a more mechanical transformation of existing concepts (iteration), and concluding with a broader, more evaluative synthetic framing (recomposition). Based on these results, we offer implications for the integration of idea generation methods across multiple stages in design and engineering contexts.
“It’s More of a Mindset Than a Method”: UX Practitioners’ Conception of Desig...colin gray
There has been increasing interest in the work practices of user experience (UX) designers, particularly in relation to approaches that support adoption of human-centered principles in corporate environments. This paper addresses the ways in which UX designers conceive of methods that support their practice, and the methods they consider necessary as a baseline competency for beginning user experience designers. Interviews were conducted with practitioners in a range of companies, with differing levels of expertise and educational backgrounds represented. Interviewees were asked about their use of design methods in practice, and the methods they considered to be core of their practice; in addition, they were asked what set of methods would be vital for beginning designers joining their company. Based on these interviews, I evaluate practitioner conceptions of design methods, proposing an appropriation-oriented mindset that drives the use of tool knowledge, supporting designers’ practice in a variety of corporate contexts. Opportunities are considered for future research in the study of UX practice and training of students in human-computer interaction programs.
Chapter 12: Cognitive models
from
Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale (2004).
Human-Computer Interaction, third edition.
Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-239864-8.
http://www.hcibook.com/e3/
What is the Nature and Intended Use of Design Methods?colin gray
Interest in the codification and application of design methods is rapidly growing as businesses increasingly utilize “design thinking” approaches. However, in this uptake of design methods that encourage designerly action, the ontological status of design methods is often diffuse, with contradictory messages from practitioners and academics about the purpose and desired use of methods within a designer’s process. In this paper, I explore the paradoxical nature of design methods, arguing for a nuanced view that includes the (often) conflicting qualities of prescription and performance. A prescriptive view of methods is drawn from the specification of methods and their “proper” use in the academic literature, while a performative view focuses on in situ use in practice, describing how practitioners use methods to support their everyday work. The ontological characteristics and practical outcomes of each view of design methods are considered, concluding with productive tensions that juxtapose academia and practice.
Creativity "Misrules": First Year Engineering Students’ Production and Percep...colin gray
We report four cases from a larger study, focusing on participants’ self-identified “most creative” concept in relation to their other concepts. As part of an ideation session, first-year engineering students were asked to create concepts for one of two engineering design problems in an 85-minute period, and were exposed to one of two different forms of fixation. Participants worked as individuals, first using traditional brainstorming techniques and generating as many ideas as possible. Design Heuristics cards were then introduced, and students were asked to generate as many additional concepts as possible. After the activity, participants ranked all of the concepts they generated from most to least creative. Representative cases include a detailed analysis of the concept that each participant rated as “most creative,” idea generation method used, and relative location and relationship of the concept to other concepts generated by that participant. Across four cases, we identified a number of characteristic “misrules” or misconceptions, revealing that first-year students judge creativity in their concepts in ways that could inhibit their ability to produce truly novel concepts. We present Design Heuristics as a tool to encourage the exploration of creative concept pathways, empowering students to create more novel concepts by rejecting misrules about creativity.
Meaning Reconstruction as an Approach to Analyze Critical Dimensions of HCI R...colin gray
A critical tradition has taken hold in HCI, yet research methods needed to meaningfully engage with critical questions in the qualitative tradition are nascent. In this paper, we explore one critical qualitative research approach that allows researchers to probe deeply into the relationships between communicative acts and social structures. Meaning reconstruction methods are described and illustrated using examples from HCI research, demonstrating how social norms can be traced as they are claimed and reproduced. We conclude with implications for strengthening rigorous critical inquiry in HCI research, including the use of extant critical research methods to document transparency and thick description.
“Why are they not responding to critique?”: A student-centered construction o...colin gray
The crit is a dominant public instructional event, and has often been studied through the lens of institutional power, through the perspective of the instructor. In this study, we analyze the classroom presentations and critiques of three teams in a design-focused human-computer interaction graduate program, calling attention to other modes of student-generated critique that occur alongside the traditional formal conversation. These critiques comprise, in parallel: 1) a public oral critique led by the instructor alongside student questions; 2) a critique document collaboratively authored in Google Docs by experienced students; and 3) backchannel chat by experienced students via Google Doc messaging. Through the complex interactions between these modes of parallel critique, multiple levels of interaction and conversational behavior emerge, with experienced students shaping each type of feedback and use of technological tools. We present and analyze cases drawn from the teams through computer-mediated communication and critical pedagogy perspectives to characterize these interactions, documenting how experienced students take on different typifications—or understandings of role expectations within the conversation—which mediate the instructional qualities of the critique. We introduce three typifications: the relaxed professional in backchannel chat, poised professional in the Google Doc, and instructional tutor in the physical classroom space.
Inverting Critique: Emergent Technologically-Mediated Critique Practices of D...colin gray
Critique is the primary method of assessment used in design education, yet is not well understood apart from traditional structures of institutional power and faculty initiation. In this study, we analyze the classroom presentations and critiques of eleven teams in a design-focused human-computer interaction graduate program, focusing on an emergent instructional design for technologically-mediated critique created by experienced students serving as peer mentors. Initial analysis suggests complex interaction between multiple modes of critique beyond the “traditional” critique: 1) public oral critique led by faculty, 2) a critique document authored in Google Docs by experienced students, and 3) backchannel chat in Google Docs by experienced students. These interactions indicate instructional affordances for including many simultaneous users within an existing critique infrastructure. Implications of this instructional design for expanding the capacity of physical critique events and the role of participation in student learning are considered.
Supporting Idea Generation Through Functional Decomposition: An Alternative F...colin gray
This study explored how guided ideation can support concept initiation and development. We conducted a set of in-class activities in a junior-level industrial design studio at a large Midwestern US university with 20 students. Participants generated concepts individually while working on a previously defined problem. They performed a functional decomposition of existing concepts, then used a self-selected function to rapidly generate ideas in three stages over 45 minutes, supported by Design Heuristics cards. Through analysis of eight cases, we found that generated concepts were consistent with the originally defined function. The students’ ability to create a range of solutions increased over time, and concepts became more divergent through each of the three stages. Use of Design Heuristics changed, beginning as a tool for divergent concept generation (ideation), moving to a more mechanical transformation of existing concepts (iteration), and concluding with a broader, more evaluative synthetic framing (recomposition). Based on these results, we offer implications for the integration of idea generation methods across multiple stages in design and engineering contexts.
“It’s More of a Mindset Than a Method”: UX Practitioners’ Conception of Desig...colin gray
There has been increasing interest in the work practices of user experience (UX) designers, particularly in relation to approaches that support adoption of human-centered principles in corporate environments. This paper addresses the ways in which UX designers conceive of methods that support their practice, and the methods they consider necessary as a baseline competency for beginning user experience designers. Interviews were conducted with practitioners in a range of companies, with differing levels of expertise and educational backgrounds represented. Interviewees were asked about their use of design methods in practice, and the methods they considered to be core of their practice; in addition, they were asked what set of methods would be vital for beginning designers joining their company. Based on these interviews, I evaluate practitioner conceptions of design methods, proposing an appropriation-oriented mindset that drives the use of tool knowledge, supporting designers’ practice in a variety of corporate contexts. Opportunities are considered for future research in the study of UX practice and training of students in human-computer interaction programs.
Designers’ Articulation and Activation of Instrumental Design Judgments in Cr...colin gray
The document discusses instrumental design judgments in cross-cultural user research. It analyzes data from design workshops and debrief sessions conducted by a design team in China. The analysis finds:
1. The design team made explicit and implicit efforts to understand Chinese culture, such as relating observations to their own context, asking translators for explanations, and trying out cultural understandings.
2. The design team was also aware of limitations in their cultural perspectives and made generalizations.
3. Over time, the design team shifted their instrumental judgments, first by "nuancing" the role of translators to provide more cultural context, and then by "making familiar" unfamiliar Chinese concepts by relating them to their own experiences
What is the Content of “Design Thinking”? Design Heuristics as Conceptual Rep...colin gray
When engaged in design activity, what does a designer think about? And how does she draw on disciplinary knowledge, precedent, and other strategies in her design process in order to imagine new possible futures? In this paper, we explore Design Heuristics as a form of intermediate-level knowledge that may explain how designers build on existing knowledge of “design moves”—non-deterministic, generative strategies or heuristics—during conceptual design activity. We describe relationships between disciplinary training and the acquisition of such heuristics, and postulate how design students might accelerate their development of expertise.
This document provides an overview of a module introducing web accessibility. It discusses navigation tools available, then previews topics to be covered which include definitions of web accessibility, consequences of poor accessibility, and ways to integrate accessibility. Specific types of disabilities are outlined, and technological impairments are discussed. Sections cover an introduction to accessibility, consequences of inaccessibility, and ways to create accessibility through site audits, structure planning, and identifying content types.
Flow of Competence in UX Design Practicecolin gray
UX and design culture are beginning to dominate corporate priorities, but despite the current hype there is often a disconnect between the organizational efficiencies desired by executives and the knowledge of how UX can or should address these issues. This exploratory study addresses this space by reframing the concept of competence in UX to include the flow of competence between individual designers and the companies in which they work. Our reframing resulted in a preliminary schema based on interviews conducted with six design practitioners, which allows this flow to be traced in a performative way on the part of individuals and groups over time. We then trace this flow of individual and organizational competence through three case studies of UX adoption. Opportunities for use of this preliminary schema as a generative, rhetorical tool for HCI researchers to further interrogate UX adoption are considered, including accounting for factors that affect adoption.
Struggle Over Representation in the Studio: Critical Pedagogy in Design Educa...colin gray
This document discusses critical pedagogy and its application to design education. It notes that studio pedagogy is built on apprenticeship models and incorporates elements of critique that can normalize oppression. Critical framings have been rare in design education. The document presents a case study of students in a design classroom struggling over how to represent their identity and process. There were tensions between the students' emphasis on physical prototyping and the faculty prioritization of completed artifacts. This highlighted different discourses between the proto-professional students oriented toward practice, and the academic focus on legitimizing certain representations over others.
Discursive Structures of Informal Critique in an HCI Design Studio colin gray
Critique has long been considered a benchmark of design education and practice, both as a way to elicit feedback about design artifacts in the process of production and as a high-stakes assessment tool in academia. In this study, I investigate a specific form of critique between peers that emerges organically in the design studio apart from coursework or guidance of a professor. Based on intensive interviews and observations, this informal peer critique appears to elicit the design judgment of the individual designer in explicit ways, encouraging peers to follow new paths in their design process, while also verbalizing often-implicit design decisions that have already been made. Implications for future research in academic and professional practice are considered.
Normativity in Design Communication: Inscribing Design Values in Designed Art...colin gray
The design community has discussed issues of ethics and values for decades, but less attention has been paid to the question of how an ethical sensibility might be developed or taken on by design students. In this analysis, we explore how normative concerns emerge through the process of design reviews—where a developing designer’s normative infrastructure is engaged with the artifact they are designing. We focused on the normative concerns that were foregrounded by two undergraduate and two graduate industrial design students across a series of five design reviews, addressing the possible relationship between the emergence of normative concerns and the inscription of norms in the final designed artifact. We used several critical qualitative techniques, including sequence analysis and meaning reconstruction to locate areas where normative concerns were addressed.
Normative concerns only arose in explicit form in the earliest review sessions on the graduate level, if they were going to arise at all, and end-user research appeared to be the primary mechanism for introducing norms into the design process. Neither instructor actively engaged or foregrounded the normative infrastructure of the design students, and all of the normative concerns discussed in the four cases were brought to the conversation by students. Implications for including awareness of normative concerns as part of a student’s developing design character are considered as part of a systemic approach to ethics and values in design education.
What Problem Are We Solving? Encouraging Idea Generation and Effective Team C...colin gray
Idea generation has frequently been explored in design education as an exercise of students’ “innate” creativity, and few tools or techniques are offered to scaffold ideation ability. As students develop their design skills, we expect them to demonstrate increasing ideation flexibility—a cognitive and social ability to see a problem from multiple perspectives, and to create more varied concepts within the problem space. In this study, we introduced three tools— functional decomposition, Design Heuristics, and affinity diagramming—to aid students’ ideation in a three-hour workshop. Participants included 20 students in a junior industrial design studio arranged in five pre-existing teams. These participants first decomposed the functions within an existing set of concepts they had generated, then selected a specific function and generated additional concepts using the Design Heuristics ideation method. Finally, teams organized these concepts using affinity diagramming to find patterns and additional concepts. Our findings suggest that this process encouraged students to try multiple ways of examining the existing problem space, resulting in a broadened set of final concepts. More striking, the instructional activities served to foreground differences in team members’ understanding of the problem they were addressing, fostering alignment of their problem statement and aiding in its further development.
Developing an Ethically-Aware Design Character through Problem Framingcolin gray
Expert designers determine what problem needs to be solved—framing the design space, and not just designing an appropriate solution. In this study, undergraduate and graduate industrial design students at a large Midwestern university were engaged in a one-day workshop, focusing on designing products for natives of Sub-Saharan Africa to sell in their home nations. Participants worked in teams to generate a range of constraints and problem statements. Teams struggled to identify specific use contexts and users, even though these elements were present in provided research materials. They appeared to build distance between their own experiences and that of the users they were designing for, potentially bifurcating their sense of ethics and normative commitments that were actively being reified in problem statements and solutions.
What Happens when Creativity is Exhausted? Design Tools as an Aid for Ideationcolin gray
Numerous studies have shown the value of introducing cognitive supports to encourage the development of creative ability, using both convergent and divergent methods to develop and synthesize ideas. As part of this iterative idea generation process, design students often struggle to explore new ideas after their initial ideas are exhausted. Yet, there is little instructional guidance on how to productively use the exhaustion of ideas as a way to encourage the development of creative ability, particularly in relation to creativity support tools. In this study, an idea generation tool called Design Heuristics was employed in an industrial design course at a large Midwestern university. Students were given a simple design task, and 30 minutes to generate concept ideas on their own; then, after ten minutes of instruction on the Design Heuristics tool, students generated more ideas for an additional 30 minutes using the same problem. Working on their own, students generated an average of 6 concepts, and generated 2.7 additional concepts while using the Design Heuristics tool. Even though the initial ideation session resulted in more concepts, once their ideas were exhausted, the students were able to continue creating more concepts using Design Heuristics. Concepts created in this second session were rated as higher in their novelty, specificity, and relevance. These results suggest the advantages of introducing creativity support tools following a period where students can work using their own ideas; once exhausted, they may be more open to adopting the method or tool introduced, and may produce more creative outcomes.
Expectations of Reciprocity? An Analysis of Critique in Facebook Posts by Stu...colin gray
Teaching design relies on critique as a component of its pedagogy. As mediated communication becomes progressively more pervasive in the learning experience of developing designers, we see a need to explore how critique manifests in these mediated spaces. This study explores how learners of design use Facebook groups to collaboratively bring about design learning via critique. Facebook group communications of graduate Human-Computer Interaction design (HCI/d) participants at a large Midwestern American university were analyzed. Data included 4558 status updates and 15273 comments from 160 students. A preliminary analysis of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in this Facebook group revealed that communication centered on quasi-professional social talk, and under this framing, informal peer critique emerged as a form of phatic, professional communication.
Seventy-four threads, out of a corpus of 4558, focused on critique, suggesting learners did not capitalize on the potential of the media. Critique threads were primarily posted in groups with larger numbers of members, reflecting the desire for a broader venue of potential critique participants employed by those who recognize the potential of the media. A participation coefficient was devised to represent the level of reciprocity, addressing both the students’ participation in requesting critique through status updates, and in providing feedback to other student requests for critique. No significant relationship was found between these two participation metrics, despite the assertion by multiple students that reciprocity was, or should be, present in these online critiques. Three outliers were located in this participation matrix, and are discussed as a framing for future work in understanding informal communication around critique as a type of designerly talk.
Reprioritizing the Relationship Between HCI Research and Practice: Bubble-Up ...colin gray
There has been an ongoing conversation about the role and relationship of theory and practice in the HCI community. This paper explores this relationship privileging a practice perspective through a tentative model, which describes a “bubble-up” of ideas from practice to inform research and theory development, and an accompanying “trickle-down” of theory into practice. Interviews were conducted with interaction designers, which included a description of their use of design methods in practice, and their knowledge and use of two common design methods—affinity diagramming and the concept of affordance. Based on these interviews, potential relationships between theory and practice are explored through this model. Disseminating agents already common in HCI practice are addressed as possible mechanisms for the research community to understand practice more completely. Opportunities for future research, based on the use of the tentative model in a generative way, are considered.
AERA2014: Instructional Design In Action: Observing the Judgments of ID Pract...colin gray
The document discusses a study on instructional design (ID) practitioners' judgments during practice. It aims to understand what judgments take place and how they align with design judgment frameworks. Researchers observed 8 ID practitioners for 20 hours total, taking field notes and later conducting interviews. They identified 11 types of design judgments, such as framing, appreciative, and navigational. Results showed practitioners made an average of 35 judgments per observation. The most common judgments were framing, appreciative, quality, and instrumental. This suggests design judgments are an integral part of ID practice and occur frequently throughout the process.
An overview of multimedia learning concerns when using embedded social media tools, focusing on the iconographic and technical implications of video embedding.
Raster images are composed of pixels and are best for photo-realistic images like textures, photographs, and effects. Vector images use mathematical formulas to describe objects and are better for illustrations, logos, icons, and scalable drawings like diagrams. Key factors in choosing a file type are whether the image needs unlimited scalability, sharp text, or contains raster-friendly content like photos.
Studio Teaching in the Low-Precedent Context of Instructional Designcolin gray
Instructional design (ID) has been a scientized field of design for half a century, which means that models and principles have been emphasized in ID education over other forms of design knowledge, including precedent. In the study of design broadly defined, precedent is well established as a form of knowledge essential to competent practice. It is plentiful and made available through multiple channels, by practitioners as well as educators. This 7-year study examines the challenges for students in learning to recognize, appreciate and use precedent in designing images to support learning. These include the need to develop analogical thinking related to the use of precedent in their own work, to recognize precedents they already use without explicit awareness, to attend to precedent and seek it independent of its immediate use. Methods used in the studio course under study are discussed, together with examples of students' design activities at each stage in the evolution of the course. Data for this study comprise detailed field notes from each class period, student work, and reflections assigned as part of the regular class assignments.
Emergent Critique in Informal Design Talk: Reflections of Surface, Pedagogic...colin gray
While critique is frequently studied in formal higher education contexts, often including investigation of classroom critique and high stakes design juries, relatively little is known about the qualities of informal critique and design talk that occurs organically between students in the design studio environment. A critical analysis of design education has revealed a lack of attention to the role of student experience and the power relations that often dominate critique as an evaluative activity. Previous studies conducted in this framing have revealed what Dutton (1991) terms the "hidden curriculum" of a design studio, including factors that affect the student experience of a design pedagogy. Utilizing Shaffer's (2003) framework to theorize the construction of this "hidden curriculum," an evaluation of features manifests on three levels: surface, pedagogical, and epistemological.
This study investigates the occurrence of informal design talk between students in a shared studio workspace in a graduate Human-Computer Interaction design program. Data sources for this ethnographic investigation include: approximately 150 hours of participant observation of the studio space during a four month period, supporting audio recordings and photographs, and intensive interviews.
Based on initial analysis of collected data, including field notes, photographs, and audio recordings, a preliminary taxonomy of informal instigating interactions can be arranged. A broad continuum of informal design talk was observed, with little critique or critical talk between students following a structure that corresponds with classroom or professor-led critique. Despite this lack of structural similarity, informal design talk frequently invokes elements of critical discourse, reflecting the growth of a personal design perspective, and the latent assumptions built into the surface, pedagogical, and epistemological structures of the studio environment.
The Hidden Curriculum of the Design Studio: Student Engagement in Informal Cr...colin gray
Critique is an important part of a typical design pedagogy, but is generally only discussed within formal curricular structures, which do not address informal interactions between students in the design studio. In this study, I report findings from ethnographic observations of a design studio, including occurrences of informal critique that take place outside of the planned curriculum. Types of critique that are observed are detailed, including similarities or differences to critique in typical classroom practice.
Building Design Knowledge: Creating and Disseminating Design Precedentcolin gray
An invited lecture at Iowa State University on October 9, 2014. This talk focused on the role of design precedent and knowledge-building within the instructional design community, with specific guidance on preparing design cases for publication in the International Journal of Designs for Learning.
Stop Telling Designers What To Do: Reframing Instructional Design Education T...colin gray
This document summarizes a study on design judgment in instructional design practice. The researchers observed 8 instructional designers and identified different types of judgments they made. They found that judgments were made continuously throughout projects and were highly situational based on contextual factors. Design judgments occurred in complex, layered ways and involved multiple types of judgments. The researchers believe this study suggests instructional design education should focus less on teaching isolated tools/models and more on helping students develop their ability to make judgments within complex design contexts.
The cognitive walkthrough is a usability inspection method that evaluates how easily users can learn to use an interface by exploring it. It involves defining tasks, expected action sequences, and users. Evaluators then walk through each task step-by-step to identify any issues like mismatches between actions and effects or inadequate feedback. The goal is to catch problems that could hinder a user's ability to learn through exploration.
A Case Study For Evaluating Interface Design Through CommunicabilityLisa Riley
This document presents a case study that evaluates how the communicability of an application changes along users' learning curves. Communicability evaluation is a method based on semiotic engineering that assesses how well designers communicate their design intents and interactive principles to users. The case study aimed to provide information about interface designs and identify communicative problems as users became more proficient. It involved tagging users' interactions with communicability tags representing communication breakdowns, interpreting the tags by mapping them to HCI problems and design guidelines, and creating a semiotic profile of the interface. The study sought to complement traditional usability evaluation methods by focusing on how effectively the interface conveys the designers' intentions.
Designers’ Articulation and Activation of Instrumental Design Judgments in Cr...colin gray
The document discusses instrumental design judgments in cross-cultural user research. It analyzes data from design workshops and debrief sessions conducted by a design team in China. The analysis finds:
1. The design team made explicit and implicit efforts to understand Chinese culture, such as relating observations to their own context, asking translators for explanations, and trying out cultural understandings.
2. The design team was also aware of limitations in their cultural perspectives and made generalizations.
3. Over time, the design team shifted their instrumental judgments, first by "nuancing" the role of translators to provide more cultural context, and then by "making familiar" unfamiliar Chinese concepts by relating them to their own experiences
What is the Content of “Design Thinking”? Design Heuristics as Conceptual Rep...colin gray
When engaged in design activity, what does a designer think about? And how does she draw on disciplinary knowledge, precedent, and other strategies in her design process in order to imagine new possible futures? In this paper, we explore Design Heuristics as a form of intermediate-level knowledge that may explain how designers build on existing knowledge of “design moves”—non-deterministic, generative strategies or heuristics—during conceptual design activity. We describe relationships between disciplinary training and the acquisition of such heuristics, and postulate how design students might accelerate their development of expertise.
This document provides an overview of a module introducing web accessibility. It discusses navigation tools available, then previews topics to be covered which include definitions of web accessibility, consequences of poor accessibility, and ways to integrate accessibility. Specific types of disabilities are outlined, and technological impairments are discussed. Sections cover an introduction to accessibility, consequences of inaccessibility, and ways to create accessibility through site audits, structure planning, and identifying content types.
Flow of Competence in UX Design Practicecolin gray
UX and design culture are beginning to dominate corporate priorities, but despite the current hype there is often a disconnect between the organizational efficiencies desired by executives and the knowledge of how UX can or should address these issues. This exploratory study addresses this space by reframing the concept of competence in UX to include the flow of competence between individual designers and the companies in which they work. Our reframing resulted in a preliminary schema based on interviews conducted with six design practitioners, which allows this flow to be traced in a performative way on the part of individuals and groups over time. We then trace this flow of individual and organizational competence through three case studies of UX adoption. Opportunities for use of this preliminary schema as a generative, rhetorical tool for HCI researchers to further interrogate UX adoption are considered, including accounting for factors that affect adoption.
Struggle Over Representation in the Studio: Critical Pedagogy in Design Educa...colin gray
This document discusses critical pedagogy and its application to design education. It notes that studio pedagogy is built on apprenticeship models and incorporates elements of critique that can normalize oppression. Critical framings have been rare in design education. The document presents a case study of students in a design classroom struggling over how to represent their identity and process. There were tensions between the students' emphasis on physical prototyping and the faculty prioritization of completed artifacts. This highlighted different discourses between the proto-professional students oriented toward practice, and the academic focus on legitimizing certain representations over others.
Discursive Structures of Informal Critique in an HCI Design Studio colin gray
Critique has long been considered a benchmark of design education and practice, both as a way to elicit feedback about design artifacts in the process of production and as a high-stakes assessment tool in academia. In this study, I investigate a specific form of critique between peers that emerges organically in the design studio apart from coursework or guidance of a professor. Based on intensive interviews and observations, this informal peer critique appears to elicit the design judgment of the individual designer in explicit ways, encouraging peers to follow new paths in their design process, while also verbalizing often-implicit design decisions that have already been made. Implications for future research in academic and professional practice are considered.
Normativity in Design Communication: Inscribing Design Values in Designed Art...colin gray
The design community has discussed issues of ethics and values for decades, but less attention has been paid to the question of how an ethical sensibility might be developed or taken on by design students. In this analysis, we explore how normative concerns emerge through the process of design reviews—where a developing designer’s normative infrastructure is engaged with the artifact they are designing. We focused on the normative concerns that were foregrounded by two undergraduate and two graduate industrial design students across a series of five design reviews, addressing the possible relationship between the emergence of normative concerns and the inscription of norms in the final designed artifact. We used several critical qualitative techniques, including sequence analysis and meaning reconstruction to locate areas where normative concerns were addressed.
Normative concerns only arose in explicit form in the earliest review sessions on the graduate level, if they were going to arise at all, and end-user research appeared to be the primary mechanism for introducing norms into the design process. Neither instructor actively engaged or foregrounded the normative infrastructure of the design students, and all of the normative concerns discussed in the four cases were brought to the conversation by students. Implications for including awareness of normative concerns as part of a student’s developing design character are considered as part of a systemic approach to ethics and values in design education.
What Problem Are We Solving? Encouraging Idea Generation and Effective Team C...colin gray
Idea generation has frequently been explored in design education as an exercise of students’ “innate” creativity, and few tools or techniques are offered to scaffold ideation ability. As students develop their design skills, we expect them to demonstrate increasing ideation flexibility—a cognitive and social ability to see a problem from multiple perspectives, and to create more varied concepts within the problem space. In this study, we introduced three tools— functional decomposition, Design Heuristics, and affinity diagramming—to aid students’ ideation in a three-hour workshop. Participants included 20 students in a junior industrial design studio arranged in five pre-existing teams. These participants first decomposed the functions within an existing set of concepts they had generated, then selected a specific function and generated additional concepts using the Design Heuristics ideation method. Finally, teams organized these concepts using affinity diagramming to find patterns and additional concepts. Our findings suggest that this process encouraged students to try multiple ways of examining the existing problem space, resulting in a broadened set of final concepts. More striking, the instructional activities served to foreground differences in team members’ understanding of the problem they were addressing, fostering alignment of their problem statement and aiding in its further development.
Developing an Ethically-Aware Design Character through Problem Framingcolin gray
Expert designers determine what problem needs to be solved—framing the design space, and not just designing an appropriate solution. In this study, undergraduate and graduate industrial design students at a large Midwestern university were engaged in a one-day workshop, focusing on designing products for natives of Sub-Saharan Africa to sell in their home nations. Participants worked in teams to generate a range of constraints and problem statements. Teams struggled to identify specific use contexts and users, even though these elements were present in provided research materials. They appeared to build distance between their own experiences and that of the users they were designing for, potentially bifurcating their sense of ethics and normative commitments that were actively being reified in problem statements and solutions.
What Happens when Creativity is Exhausted? Design Tools as an Aid for Ideationcolin gray
Numerous studies have shown the value of introducing cognitive supports to encourage the development of creative ability, using both convergent and divergent methods to develop and synthesize ideas. As part of this iterative idea generation process, design students often struggle to explore new ideas after their initial ideas are exhausted. Yet, there is little instructional guidance on how to productively use the exhaustion of ideas as a way to encourage the development of creative ability, particularly in relation to creativity support tools. In this study, an idea generation tool called Design Heuristics was employed in an industrial design course at a large Midwestern university. Students were given a simple design task, and 30 minutes to generate concept ideas on their own; then, after ten minutes of instruction on the Design Heuristics tool, students generated more ideas for an additional 30 minutes using the same problem. Working on their own, students generated an average of 6 concepts, and generated 2.7 additional concepts while using the Design Heuristics tool. Even though the initial ideation session resulted in more concepts, once their ideas were exhausted, the students were able to continue creating more concepts using Design Heuristics. Concepts created in this second session were rated as higher in their novelty, specificity, and relevance. These results suggest the advantages of introducing creativity support tools following a period where students can work using their own ideas; once exhausted, they may be more open to adopting the method or tool introduced, and may produce more creative outcomes.
Expectations of Reciprocity? An Analysis of Critique in Facebook Posts by Stu...colin gray
Teaching design relies on critique as a component of its pedagogy. As mediated communication becomes progressively more pervasive in the learning experience of developing designers, we see a need to explore how critique manifests in these mediated spaces. This study explores how learners of design use Facebook groups to collaboratively bring about design learning via critique. Facebook group communications of graduate Human-Computer Interaction design (HCI/d) participants at a large Midwestern American university were analyzed. Data included 4558 status updates and 15273 comments from 160 students. A preliminary analysis of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in this Facebook group revealed that communication centered on quasi-professional social talk, and under this framing, informal peer critique emerged as a form of phatic, professional communication.
Seventy-four threads, out of a corpus of 4558, focused on critique, suggesting learners did not capitalize on the potential of the media. Critique threads were primarily posted in groups with larger numbers of members, reflecting the desire for a broader venue of potential critique participants employed by those who recognize the potential of the media. A participation coefficient was devised to represent the level of reciprocity, addressing both the students’ participation in requesting critique through status updates, and in providing feedback to other student requests for critique. No significant relationship was found between these two participation metrics, despite the assertion by multiple students that reciprocity was, or should be, present in these online critiques. Three outliers were located in this participation matrix, and are discussed as a framing for future work in understanding informal communication around critique as a type of designerly talk.
Reprioritizing the Relationship Between HCI Research and Practice: Bubble-Up ...colin gray
There has been an ongoing conversation about the role and relationship of theory and practice in the HCI community. This paper explores this relationship privileging a practice perspective through a tentative model, which describes a “bubble-up” of ideas from practice to inform research and theory development, and an accompanying “trickle-down” of theory into practice. Interviews were conducted with interaction designers, which included a description of their use of design methods in practice, and their knowledge and use of two common design methods—affinity diagramming and the concept of affordance. Based on these interviews, potential relationships between theory and practice are explored through this model. Disseminating agents already common in HCI practice are addressed as possible mechanisms for the research community to understand practice more completely. Opportunities for future research, based on the use of the tentative model in a generative way, are considered.
AERA2014: Instructional Design In Action: Observing the Judgments of ID Pract...colin gray
The document discusses a study on instructional design (ID) practitioners' judgments during practice. It aims to understand what judgments take place and how they align with design judgment frameworks. Researchers observed 8 ID practitioners for 20 hours total, taking field notes and later conducting interviews. They identified 11 types of design judgments, such as framing, appreciative, and navigational. Results showed practitioners made an average of 35 judgments per observation. The most common judgments were framing, appreciative, quality, and instrumental. This suggests design judgments are an integral part of ID practice and occur frequently throughout the process.
An overview of multimedia learning concerns when using embedded social media tools, focusing on the iconographic and technical implications of video embedding.
Raster images are composed of pixels and are best for photo-realistic images like textures, photographs, and effects. Vector images use mathematical formulas to describe objects and are better for illustrations, logos, icons, and scalable drawings like diagrams. Key factors in choosing a file type are whether the image needs unlimited scalability, sharp text, or contains raster-friendly content like photos.
Studio Teaching in the Low-Precedent Context of Instructional Designcolin gray
Instructional design (ID) has been a scientized field of design for half a century, which means that models and principles have been emphasized in ID education over other forms of design knowledge, including precedent. In the study of design broadly defined, precedent is well established as a form of knowledge essential to competent practice. It is plentiful and made available through multiple channels, by practitioners as well as educators. This 7-year study examines the challenges for students in learning to recognize, appreciate and use precedent in designing images to support learning. These include the need to develop analogical thinking related to the use of precedent in their own work, to recognize precedents they already use without explicit awareness, to attend to precedent and seek it independent of its immediate use. Methods used in the studio course under study are discussed, together with examples of students' design activities at each stage in the evolution of the course. Data for this study comprise detailed field notes from each class period, student work, and reflections assigned as part of the regular class assignments.
Emergent Critique in Informal Design Talk: Reflections of Surface, Pedagogic...colin gray
While critique is frequently studied in formal higher education contexts, often including investigation of classroom critique and high stakes design juries, relatively little is known about the qualities of informal critique and design talk that occurs organically between students in the design studio environment. A critical analysis of design education has revealed a lack of attention to the role of student experience and the power relations that often dominate critique as an evaluative activity. Previous studies conducted in this framing have revealed what Dutton (1991) terms the "hidden curriculum" of a design studio, including factors that affect the student experience of a design pedagogy. Utilizing Shaffer's (2003) framework to theorize the construction of this "hidden curriculum," an evaluation of features manifests on three levels: surface, pedagogical, and epistemological.
This study investigates the occurrence of informal design talk between students in a shared studio workspace in a graduate Human-Computer Interaction design program. Data sources for this ethnographic investigation include: approximately 150 hours of participant observation of the studio space during a four month period, supporting audio recordings and photographs, and intensive interviews.
Based on initial analysis of collected data, including field notes, photographs, and audio recordings, a preliminary taxonomy of informal instigating interactions can be arranged. A broad continuum of informal design talk was observed, with little critique or critical talk between students following a structure that corresponds with classroom or professor-led critique. Despite this lack of structural similarity, informal design talk frequently invokes elements of critical discourse, reflecting the growth of a personal design perspective, and the latent assumptions built into the surface, pedagogical, and epistemological structures of the studio environment.
The Hidden Curriculum of the Design Studio: Student Engagement in Informal Cr...colin gray
Critique is an important part of a typical design pedagogy, but is generally only discussed within formal curricular structures, which do not address informal interactions between students in the design studio. In this study, I report findings from ethnographic observations of a design studio, including occurrences of informal critique that take place outside of the planned curriculum. Types of critique that are observed are detailed, including similarities or differences to critique in typical classroom practice.
Building Design Knowledge: Creating and Disseminating Design Precedentcolin gray
An invited lecture at Iowa State University on October 9, 2014. This talk focused on the role of design precedent and knowledge-building within the instructional design community, with specific guidance on preparing design cases for publication in the International Journal of Designs for Learning.
Stop Telling Designers What To Do: Reframing Instructional Design Education T...colin gray
This document summarizes a study on design judgment in instructional design practice. The researchers observed 8 instructional designers and identified different types of judgments they made. They found that judgments were made continuously throughout projects and were highly situational based on contextual factors. Design judgments occurred in complex, layered ways and involved multiple types of judgments. The researchers believe this study suggests instructional design education should focus less on teaching isolated tools/models and more on helping students develop their ability to make judgments within complex design contexts.
The cognitive walkthrough is a usability inspection method that evaluates how easily users can learn to use an interface by exploring it. It involves defining tasks, expected action sequences, and users. Evaluators then walk through each task step-by-step to identify any issues like mismatches between actions and effects or inadequate feedback. The goal is to catch problems that could hinder a user's ability to learn through exploration.
A Case Study For Evaluating Interface Design Through CommunicabilityLisa Riley
This document presents a case study that evaluates how the communicability of an application changes along users' learning curves. Communicability evaluation is a method based on semiotic engineering that assesses how well designers communicate their design intents and interactive principles to users. The case study aimed to provide information about interface designs and identify communicative problems as users became more proficient. It involved tagging users' interactions with communicability tags representing communication breakdowns, interpreting the tags by mapping them to HCI problems and design guidelines, and creating a semiotic profile of the interface. The study sought to complement traditional usability evaluation methods by focusing on how effectively the interface conveys the designers' intentions.
Principles of Health Informatics: Evaluating medical softwareMartin Chapman
Principles of Health Informatics: Evaluating medical software. Last delivered in 2023. All educational material listed or linked to on these pages in relation to King's College London may be provided for reference only, and therefore does not necessarily reflect the current course content.
This document provides guidance on forming a research question for action research. It outlines four key steps: 1) Identify a problem, 2) Determine the underlying cause of the problem, 3) Brainstorm possible solutions, 4) Write a research question that tests a solution. An example is provided where a teacher identifies that students don't engage in independent reading. Possible causes are considered before focusing on lack of motivation. Potential actions are listed and setting reading contracts is selected for the research question: "If I make contracts to reward reading, will time spent reading increase?". The document stresses focusing on problems the researcher can influence through changes in their practice.
This document provides guidance on forming a research question for action research. It outlines four key steps: 1) Identify a problem, 2) Determine the underlying cause, 3) Brainstorm possible solutions, 4) Write a research question. An example is then provided where a teacher identifies that students don't engage in independent reading. Possible causes are listed, and providing alternative reading materials through a learning contract is chosen as the focus. The resulting research question asks if making a reward contract will increase time spent reading independently. Data collection methods like observations, student work, and interviews are recommended to study the solution's effectiveness.
You can easily understand Evaluation Techniques in HCI from this ppt.
Hope you understand in easy way by thoroughly reading this material.
For clear understanding I also give examples of each and every concept.
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Procedures are a form of software documentation that provide step-by-step guidance to users on how to complete tasks. Effective procedures (1) introduce the task and its purpose, (2) provide all necessary information in a logical order, and (3) include elaboration to help users avoid mistakes and learn efficient techniques. Procedures should balance explanatory text, visual elements like screenshots, and interactive elements like embedded help to clearly guide users without overwhelming them. The level of detail in a procedure depends on the intended users' experience levels and task complexity.
The document summarizes Kirkpatrick's model of training evaluation, which includes 4 levels - reaction, learning, behavior, and results. It focuses on Level 1 (reaction) and Level 2 (learning) evaluation. For Level 1, it describes measuring participant reactions through questionnaires. For Level 2, it describes measuring learning outcomes through achievement tests for knowledge, performance tests for skills, and questionnaires for attitudes. It emphasizes the importance of measuring learning objectives and using experimental research designs when possible, including control groups and pretests.
The document discusses the characteristics and process of developing effective documentation for software users. It notes that good documentation aims to save time, eliminate unnecessary steps, connect tasks to real work, and provide simple instructions. Developing documentation requires analyzing how users complete tasks and interact with software through planning, development, and evaluation stages. Understanding users' perspectives and approaches, or cognitive schemas, is important for designing documentation that meets their needs.
The document summarizes the evaluation of a home automation prototype using multiple methods. It describes conducting cognitive walkthroughs, user testing, and heuristic evaluations to discover usability issues. Testing uncovered both strengths and weaknesses in the prototype's design. Evaluators observed users completing tasks and gathered feedback to identify problems and areas for improvement. The results will be used to redesign the prototype to have better usability and meet user expectations.
The document outlines Kirkpatrick's model of training evaluation, which includes 4 levels: 1) Reaction, 2) Learning, 3) Behavior, and 4) Results. It provides details on how to design evaluations for each level, including using questionnaires, tests, and research designs to measure outcomes. The goal is to determine the effectiveness of training programs in improving reactions, knowledge, job performance, and business results.
Fundamental of testing (Test Management)CindyYuristie
This document discusses test management and summarizes key points about organizing testing efforts. It covers organizing testers on a test team and defining roles for test leaders and testers. It emphasizes the importance of independent testing and discusses how testing should be integrated within an organization. The document also outlines skills needed for testers, including application domain knowledge, technology knowledge, and testing knowledge. Finally, it notes that the types of defects found will change over time, initially finding more bugs as testing improves before focusing on preventing defects earlier in the development process.
1. What it is?. Philosophy and Principles.
2. How to use it? methodology and basic tools.
3. Beyond UCD. Alternatives methodologies: Activity Centered Design and Goal Directed Design.
Paper Gloria Cea - Goal-Oriented Design Methodology Applied to User Interface...WTHS
This document describes a user interface designed for a mobile application called the Functional Assessment System (FAS). The FAS allows users to assess their aerobic fitness on their own without specialized equipment. The design of the mobile application interface was guided by the Goal-Oriented Design methodology. This methodology focuses on representing users as characters with specific goals and designing scenarios to help users achieve those goals. The document also discusses evaluating the usability of the interface using the AttrakDiff questionnaire to assess pragmatic and hedonic qualities. The results showed satisfactory user interaction with the FAS mobile application interface.
Usability requirements and their elicitationLucas Machado
The document discusses two issues regarding usability requirements elicitation: 1) the relationship between usability testing and requirements elicitation, and 2) identifying the most suitable elicitation methodology for different projects. Regarding the first issue, it describes six styles of eliciting requirements and how usability testing can validate and refine initial requirements. For the second issue, it compares frameworks for evaluating methodologies based on factors like project environment and quality of elicited details.
- C1.1 Project characteristics (size, budget, etc.)
- C1.2 Organizational characteristics
- C1.3 User characteristics
B. Characteristics: This refers to the intrinsic
characteristics of the methodology/method. Three
Design process evaluating interactive_designsPreeti Mishra
The document discusses various methods for evaluating interactive systems, including expert analysis methods like heuristic evaluation and cognitive walkthrough, as well as user-based evaluation techniques like observational methods, query techniques, and physiological monitoring. It provides details on the process for each method and considerations for when each may be most appropriate. Evaluation aims to determine a system's usability, identify design issues, compare alternatives, and observe user effects. The criteria discussed include expert analysis, user-based, and model-based approaches.
This document summarizes key topics in test management. It discusses organizing test teams, including the benefits of independent testing. It describes typical roles for test leaders and testers, and the skills needed on the test team, including application domain knowledge, technology knowledge, and testing knowledge. It also discusses how the types of defects found change over time, initially finding more defects as testing improves, then seeing fewer defects as prevention increases.
This document proposes evaluating the usability of VALET, a visual analytics software developed by Purdue University's VACCINE lab for law enforcement officials. The project aims to collect user data through surveys, interviews, and recording user actions during goal-directed tasks. This will provide insights into difficulties with the current interface to propose design improvements around information scent, cognitive task analysis, and GOMS modeling. Future work would compare a new interface design to the current one through additional user studies and expert reviews.
Critical pedagogy and the pluriversal design studiocolin gray
Presented at the Design Research Society 2022 Conference. Full paper available at: https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2022/researchpapers/34/
Abstract: Studio learning is central to the teaching of design. However, the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside emerging and historic critiques of studio pedagogy, creates a space for critical engagement with the present and potential futures of design education in studio. In this paper, I outline historic critiques of studio pedagogy, drawing primarily from critical pedagogy literature to frame is-sues relating to disempowerment, student agency, and monolithic representa-tions of the student role and student development. I build upon this critical foundation to reimagine studio practices as pluriversal, recognizing the challenges and opportunities of bridging epistemological differences and facilitating the potential for pluralism in design curricula, our student experiences, and the fu-ture of design professions.
Critique Assemblages in Response to Emergency Hybrid Studio Pedagogycolin gray
Presented at LearnxDesign 2021
Paper available at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w67bzn6awdkfkds/2021_Wolfordetal_LxD_CritiqueAssemblages.pdf?dl=0
Abstract: Studio education focuses on active learning and assessment that is embedded in students’ explora- tion of ill-structured problems. Critique is a central component of this experience, providing a means of sensemaking, assessment, and socialization. These critique sessions encompass multiple types of interactions among students and instructors at multiple levels of formality. In most design programs, these practices have been situated in a physical studio environment—until they were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a group of educators and design students, we used this disruption as an opportunity to reimagine means of critique engagement. In this paper, we document the creation, piloting, and evaluation of new critique assemblages—each of which bring together a group of tech- nology tools, means and norms of engagement, and channels of participation. We report both on the extension of existing critique types such as desk crits, group crits, and formal presentation crits, describing both the instructional goals of the new critique assemblages and the students’ experience of these assemblages. Building on these outcomes, we reflect upon opportunities to engage with new hybrid critique approaches once residential instruction can resume and identify patterns of socialization and wellbeing that have emerged through these assemblages that foster critical reflection on studio practices.
Cross-Cultural UX Pedagogy: A China–US Partnershipcolin gray
This document describes a partnership between Purdue University and Beijing Normal University to establish dual degree programs in user experience (UX) design. It discusses the timeline of establishing the partnership from initial conversations in 2017 to welcoming the first dual degree student in 2020. Interviews with students and faculty from both programs revealed cultural differences that impact the educational experience, such as expectations of instructor roles and communication styles. Differences were also found in industry partnerships, course structures, and career expectations between the two programs. The partnership aims to advance cross-cultural UX education and identify opportunities to decolonize and pluralize HCI knowledge and practices.
Autono-preneurial Agents in the Community: Developing a Socially Aware API fo...colin gray
In this paper, we describe our efforts to appropriate an autono-preneurial agent—in this case, the Amazon Locust—through the development of an API that enables equitable and socially aware entrepreneurial decision making on the part of the Locust. We present a new API and our intended vision for this system, along with our proposed deployment plan for implementing appropriated Locusts in Midwestern USA suburban communities. These appropriated Locusts will allow community provisioning decision-making that moves beyond consideration of profitability to also include decisions based on equity, equality, community, and interpersonal relationships. We discuss the broader implications of this work and point toward future areas of inquiry.
A Practice-Led Account of the Conceptual Evolution of UX Knowledgecolin gray
The contours of user experience (UX) design practice have been shaped by a diverse array of practitioners and disci- plines, resulting in a difuse and decentralized body of UX- specifc disciplinary knowledge. The rapidly shifting space that UX knowledge occupies, in conjunction with a long- existing research-practice gap, presents unique challenges and opportunities to UX educators and aspiring UX designers. In this paper, we analyzed a corpus of question and answer communication on UX Stack Exchange using a practice-led approach, identifying and documenting practitioners’ con- ceptions of UX knowledge over a nine year period. Specif- cally, we used natural language processing techniques and qualitative content analysis to identify a disciplinary vocab- ulary invoked by UX designers in this online community, as well as conceptual trajectories spanning over nine years which could shed light on the evolution of UX practice. We further describe the implications of our fndings for HCI research and UX education.
Analyzing Value Discovery in Design Decisions Through Ethicographycolin gray
HCI scholarship is increasingly concerned with the ethi- cal impact of socio-technical systems. Current theoretically- driven approaches that engage with ethics generally pre- scribe only abstract approaches by which designers might consider values in the design process. However, there is little guidance on methods that promote value discovery, which might lead to more specific examples of relevant values in specific design contexts. In this paper, we elaborate a method for value discovery, identifying how values impact the de- signer’s decision making. We demonstrate the use of this method, called Ethicography, in describing value discovery and use throughout the design process. We present analysis of design activity by user experience (UX) design students in two lab protocol conditions, describing specific human val- ues that designers considered for each task, and visualizing the interplay of these values. We identify opportunities for further research, using the Ethicograph method to illustrate value discovery and translation into design solutions.
This document summarizes a study on ethical decision making in user experience (UX) design practice. It documents three case studies of UX designers with different levels of experience and organizational roles. Through observations and interviews, it identifies themes in their individual practices, how organizational factors influence their work, and how they navigate ethical issues. It frames UX designers as "ethical mediators" who must balance multiple constraints and priorities. The study aims to understand designers' roles in ethical decision making and develop methods to strengthen ethical awareness and action in the field.
“What do you recommend a complete beginner like me to practice?”: Professiona...colin gray
This document analyzes self-disclosure in an online user experience (UX) professional community on Reddit from January 2016 to February 2017. It finds that UX professionals disclosed academic background, work experience, career plans, and expertise. Self-disclosure occurred in 31.7% of posts and supported online communication by attracting more comments and follow-up disclosures. Disclosure helped the UX profession by sharing knowledge, established credibility for opinions, and built professional identities. The study concludes self-disclosure informs lifelong professional practice and aids the development of the UX field.
Supporting Distributed Critique through Interpretation and Sense-Making in an...colin gray
Critique is an important component of creative work in design education and practice, through which individuals can solicit advice and obtain feedback on their work. Face-to-face critique in offline settings such as design studios has been well-documented and theorized. However, little is known about unstructured distributed critique in online creative communities where people share and critique each otherâs work, and how these practices might resemble or differ from studio critique. In this paper, we use mixed-methods to examine distributed critique practices in a UX-focused online creative community on Reddit. We found that distributed critique resembles studio critique categorically, but differs qualitatively. While studio critique often focuses on depth, distributed critique often revolved around collective sensemaking, through which creative workers engaged in iteratively interpreting, defining, and refining the artifact and their process. We discuss the relationship between distributed critique and socio-technical systems and identify implications for future research.
Distinctions between the Communication of Experiential and Academic Design Kn...colin gray
The document analyzes the distinct characteristics of communication of experiential knowledge compared to academic knowledge. It examines language variables and semantic categories across different knowledge sharing platforms, finding that experiential knowledge tends to use more informal language while academic knowledge emphasizes logical and hierarchical thinking. Expressions of knowledge on Stack Exchange show a tendency toward rigorous argumentation in knowledge building. Both practice and academic communities can build knowledge, and there is potential for generative conversation and collaboration between the two.
Generating Mobile Application Onboarding Insights Through Minimalist Instructioncolin gray
Mobile application designers use onboarding task flows to help first time users learn and engage with key application functionality. Although some guidelines for designing onboarding flows have been offered by practitioners, a systematic, research-informed approach is needed. In this paper, we present the creation of a method for designing mobile application onboarding experiences. We used the minimalist instruction framework to engage twelve university students in an iterative set of design and evaluation activities. Participants interacted with a physical prototype of an educational badging mobile application through a semi-structured exploration and reflection activity, bookended by structured mini-interviews. We found that this method facilitated engagement with participants’ meaning-making processes, resulting in useful design insights and the creation of an onboarding task flow. Research opportunities for integrating instructional design and learning approaches in HCI in the context of onboarding are considered.
Interest in critical scholarship that engages with the complexity of user experience (UX) practice is rapidly expanding, yet the vocabulary for describing and assessing criticality in practice is currently lacking. In this paper, we outline and explore the limits of a specific ethical phenomenon known as "dark patterns," where user value is supplanted in favor of shareholder value. We assembled a corpus of examples of practitioner-identified dark patterns and performed a content analysis to determine the ethical concerns contained in these examples. This analysis revealed a wide range of ethical issues raised by practitioners that were frequently conflated under the umbrella term of dark patterns, while also underscoring a shared concern that UX designers could easily become complicit in manipulative or unreasonably persuasive practices. We conclude with implications for the education and practice of UX designers, and a proposal for broadening research on the ethics of user experience.
Forming A Design Identity in Computing Education Through Reflection and Peer ...colin gray
Presented at AERA'18.
Abstract: There is growing interest in reflection and the value of reflection activities in enhancing students’ metacognitive abilities. Reflection effectively connects thinking and doing, building students’ understanding both of what they know, and how to activate that knowledge in their future work. In this study, we explore the formation of students’ design identity as scaffolded by a reflection blog in a graduate human-computer interaction program. Data include 1619 posts and 2019 comments posted by 144 students across three consecutive semesters of an introductory graduate interaction design course. Our analysis demonstrates how designerly talk among students may influence understanding and performance in their future practitioner roles. Implications for professional identity formation, and the role of reflection in this process, are considered.
Breaking the Model, Breaking the “Rules:” Instructional Design in a Transdisc...colin gray
Presented at AERA'18.
Abstract: Instructional design as a practice and set of knowledge has long claimed to exist at a level “beyond discipline”—where the principles that designers derive from instructional theory and learning theory are in certain ways “content-agnostic.” This has led to an understanding of instructional design practice that privileges theoretical abstractions of instructional design activities over what are often thought of as “selection of a model” or “modifications to the model.” In this proposal, we rely upon a case study to illustrate these tensions and facilitate a conversation about the limitations of current ID models and practices. In the case, we describe the interactions among instructors and program designers in an experimental undergraduate transdisciplinary degree program across multiple years of course and program development, productively complicating traditional notions of ID practice as model-directed and model-driven. Through this case, we identify multiple tensions in designing across disciplines or in discipline-agnostic ways, including multiple instances where traditional ID guidance or knowledge is currently entirely lacking or insufficient. We conclude with opportunities for inculcating a more expansive notion of design in instructional design and technology to meet the growing need of designing inter/trans-disciplinary educational experiences.
Developing a Socially-Aware Engineering Identity Through Transdisciplinary Le...colin gray
In conjunction with the drive towards human-centered design in engineering education, questions arise regarding how students build and engage a socially-aware engineering identity. In this paper, we describe how students in a transdisciplinary undergraduate program struggle to engage with ontological and epistemological perspectives that draw on that social turn, particularly in relation to human-centered engineering approaches and sociotechnical complexity. We use a critical qualitative meaning reconstruction approach to deeply analyze the meaning-making assumptions of these students to reveal characteristic barriers in engaging with other subjectivities, and related epistemological and ontological claims implicit in these subjectivities. We conclude with implications for encouraging socially-aware identity formation in engineering education.
Blood finder application project report (1).pdfKamal Acharya
Blood Finder is an emergency time app where a user can search for the blood banks as
well as the registered blood donors around Mumbai. This application also provide an
opportunity for the user of this application to become a registered donor for this user have
to enroll for the donor request from the application itself. If the admin wish to make user
a registered donor, with some of the formalities with the organization it can be done.
Specialization of this application is that the user will not have to register on sign-in for
searching the blood banks and blood donors it can be just done by installing the
application to the mobile.
The purpose of making this application is to save the user’s time for searching blood of
needed blood group during the time of the emergency.
This is an android application developed in Java and XML with the connectivity of
SQLite database. This application will provide most of basic functionality required for an
emergency time application. All the details of Blood banks and Blood donors are stored
in the database i.e. SQLite.
This application allowed the user to get all the information regarding blood banks and
blood donors such as Name, Number, Address, Blood Group, rather than searching it on
the different websites and wasting the precious time. This application is effective and
user friendly.
Digital Twins Computer Networking Paper Presentation.pptxaryanpankaj78
A Digital Twin in computer networking is a virtual representation of a physical network, used to simulate, analyze, and optimize network performance and reliability. It leverages real-time data to enhance network management, predict issues, and improve decision-making processes.
This study Examines the Effectiveness of Talent Procurement through the Imple...DharmaBanothu
In the world with high technology and fast
forward mindset recruiters are walking/showing interest
towards E-Recruitment. Present most of the HRs of
many companies are choosing E-Recruitment as the best
choice for recruitment. E-Recruitment is being done
through many online platforms like Linkedin, Naukri,
Instagram , Facebook etc. Now with high technology E-
Recruitment has gone through next level by using
Artificial Intelligence too.
Key Words : Talent Management, Talent Acquisition , E-
Recruitment , Artificial Intelligence Introduction
Effectiveness of Talent Acquisition through E-
Recruitment in this topic we will discuss about 4important
and interlinked topics which are
Tools & Techniques for Commissioning and Maintaining PV Systems W-Animations ...Transcat
Join us for this solutions-based webinar on the tools and techniques for commissioning and maintaining PV Systems. In this session, we'll review the process of building and maintaining a solar array, starting with installation and commissioning, then reviewing operations and maintenance of the system. This course will review insulation resistance testing, I-V curve testing, earth-bond continuity, ground resistance testing, performance tests, visual inspections, ground and arc fault testing procedures, and power quality analysis.
Fluke Solar Application Specialist Will White is presenting on this engaging topic:
Will has worked in the renewable energy industry since 2005, first as an installer for a small east coast solar integrator before adding sales, design, and project management to his skillset. In 2022, Will joined Fluke as a solar application specialist, where he supports their renewable energy testing equipment like IV-curve tracers, electrical meters, and thermal imaging cameras. Experienced in wind power, solar thermal, energy storage, and all scales of PV, Will has primarily focused on residential and small commercial systems. He is passionate about implementing high-quality, code-compliant installation techniques.
Applications of artificial Intelligence in Mechanical Engineering.pdfAtif Razi
Historically, mechanical engineering has relied heavily on human expertise and empirical methods to solve complex problems. With the introduction of computer-aided design (CAD) and finite element analysis (FEA), the field took its first steps towards digitization. These tools allowed engineers to simulate and analyze mechanical systems with greater accuracy and efficiency. However, the sheer volume of data generated by modern engineering systems and the increasing complexity of these systems have necessitated more advanced analytical tools, paving the way for AI.
AI offers the capability to process vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and make predictions with a level of speed and accuracy unattainable by traditional methods. This has profound implications for mechanical engineering, enabling more efficient design processes, predictive maintenance strategies, and optimized manufacturing operations. AI-driven tools can learn from historical data, adapt to new information, and continuously improve their performance, making them invaluable in tackling the multifaceted challenges of modern mechanical engineering.
Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) Calculator ManualMassimo Talia
The aim of this manual is to explain the
methodology behind the Levelized Cost of
Hydrogen (LCOH) calculator. Moreover, this
manual also demonstrates how the calculator
can be used for estimating the expenses associated with hydrogen production in Europe
using low-temperature electrolysis considering different sources of electricity
Impartiality as per ISO /IEC 17025:2017 StandardMuhammadJazib15
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Accident detection system project report.pdfKamal Acharya
The Rapid growth of technology and infrastructure has made our lives easier. The
advent of technology has also increased the traffic hazards and the road accidents take place
frequently which causes huge loss of life and property because of the poor emergency facilities.
Many lives could have been saved if emergency service could get accident information and
reach in time. Our project will provide an optimum solution to this draw back. A piezo electric
sensor can be used as a crash or rollover detector of the vehicle during and after a crash. With
signals from a piezo electric sensor, a severe accident can be recognized. According to this
project when a vehicle meets with an accident immediately piezo electric sensor will detect the
signal or if a car rolls over. Then with the help of GSM module and GPS module, the location
will be sent to the emergency contact. Then after conforming the location necessary action will
be taken. If the person meets with a small accident or if there is no serious threat to anyone’s
life, then the alert message can be terminated by the driver by a switch provided in order to
avoid wasting the valuable time of the medical rescue team.
Idea Generation Through Empathy: Reimagining the "Cognitive Walkthrough"
1. COLIN M. GRAY
1
, SEDA YILMAZ
1
, SHANNA R. DALY
2
,
COLLEEN M. SEIFERT
2
, & RICHARD GONZALEZ
2
1 Iowa State University; 2 University of Michigan
IDEA
GENERATION
THROUGH
EMPATHY
REIMAGINING THE “COGNITIVE WALKTHROUGH”
3. HUMAN-CENTERED
COMPETENCIES
[Zowghi & Paryani, 2003; Mohedas et al., 2014; Lande &
Leifer, 2010; Walther et al., 2012; Strobel et al., 2013]
limited examples of methods to
systematically encourage the
development of empathy
5. the cognitive knowing of what
another person is feeling
the emotional feeling what another
individual is feeling
the act of responding to another’s
experience with compassion
[Levenson and Ruef, 1992; Walther et al. 2012]
EMPATHY
6. COGNITIVE WALKTHROUGH
CHI 2000 • 1-6 APRIL 2000 Papers
1. Define inputs to the walkthrough
a. Identification of users
b. Sample tasks for evaluation
c. Action sequences for completing the tasks
d. Description or implementation of interface
2. Convene the walkthrough
a. Describe the goals of the walkthrough
b. Describe what will be done during the CW
c. Describe what will not be done during the
walkthrough
d. Explicitly defuse defensiveness
e. Post ground rules in a visible place
f. Assign roles
g. Appeal for submission to leadership
3. Walkthrough the action sequences for each task
a. Tell a credible story for these two questions:
- Will the user know what to do at this step?
- If the user does the right thing, will they know
that they did the right thing, and are making progress
towards their goal?
b. Maintain control of the CW, enforce the ground
rules
4. Record critical information
a. Possible learnability problems
b. Design ideas
c. Design gaps
d. Problems in the Task Analysis
5. Revise the interface to fix the problems
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE STREAMLINED
WALKTHROUGH PROCEDURE
1. Define inputs to walkthrough
Before the CW session, the usability professional is
responsible for defining the important user task scenario or
scenarios and producing a task analysis of those scenarios
by explicating the action sequences necessary for
accomplishing the tasks in the scenarios. Wharton et al.
should be used as a resource for determining how to decide
on the scenarios and how to describe the task sequence.
2. Convene the walkthrough
The first step is to describe the goals of performing the
walkthrough. Namely, the walkthrough is an opportunity to
evaluate the user interface in terms of learnability. This is
the first opportunity to address SC 3 - Design
defensiveness, by defusing defensiveness on the part of any
team members. It is important that the usability professional
points out that learnability is only one aspect of usability,
and that the team recognizes that learnability may have
been traded off for other aspects of usability. Nonetheless,
there is inherent value in knowing when users may
encounter problems learning an interface as the issue could
be explicitly addressed elsewhere, for example, though
marketing or the help system.
A CW session is analytical in nature, and therefore lacks the
definitiveness of an empirical usability tests. In light of the
CW method's tentative nature, specification owners may
resent absolute proclamations that "this is a problem". The
usability specialist should, therefore, take care to use softer
language, like "this is a potential problem, we need to think
about it". Constant reference to the tentative nature of the
finding should help defuse defensiveness.
The usability professional then points out for the first time
that the CW is an evaluation session, not a design session,
and goes on to describe the process of walking through the
task sequence and answering the two questions for each
step (See table 4). The usability professional then gives an
example of an action sequence from software not currently
under consideration and that has plausible answers to the
two questions, and the team is encouraged to produce those
answers. Then the usability professional gives another
example, one without plausible answers, and the team is
prompted to try to provide answers. For each example, the
usability professional should model the format that the data
is captured in before proceeding with preparing the team for
the CW.
Table 4
2 questions from the streamlined CW
1. Will the user know what to do at this step?
2. If the user does the right thing, will they know that they
did the right thing, and are making progress towards their
goal?
After describing what the team will do during the
walkthrough, describe what the team will not do during the
walkthrough. This is the first opportunity to directly address
SC 2 - Lengthy design discussions, and indirectly address
SC 3 - Design defensiveness. In particular, the usability
professional explains that if the team finds a step with
possible learnability issues, they will note the possible
problem and move on to the next step, but they won't
redesign the interface. Furthermore, the usability
professional should explain that if the team encounters a
gap in the design (for example when it is not clear from the
specification what action sequence the user is supposed to
perform), the team will note the gap and move on, but they
won't stop and design the missing actions. Also, if a design
idea is suggested, the team may briefly discuss the design
idea, note it, and then move on, but the team will not flesh it
out. Lastly, if the task analysis appears to be faulty, or only
describes one of multiple possible paths towards achieving
355
[Spencer, 2000 from Wharton et al., 1994]
7. COGNITIVE WALKTHROUGH
CHI 2000 • 1-6 APRIL 2000 Papers
1. Define inputs to the walkthrough
a. Identification of users
b. Sample tasks for evaluation
c. Action sequences for completing the tasks
d. Description or implementation of interface
2. Convene the walkthrough
a. Describe the goals of the walkthrough
b. Describe what will be done during the CW
c. Describe what will not be done during the
walkthrough
d. Explicitly defuse defensiveness
e. Post ground rules in a visible place
f. Assign roles
g. Appeal for submission to leadership
3. Walkthrough the action sequences for each task
a. Tell a credible story for these two questions:
- Will the user know what to do at this step?
- If the user does the right thing, will they know
that they did the right thing, and are making progress
towards their goal?
b. Maintain control of the CW, enforce the ground
rules
4. Record critical information
a. Possible learnability problems
b. Design ideas
c. Design gaps
d. Problems in the Task Analysis
5. Revise the interface to fix the problems
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE STREAMLINED
WALKTHROUGH PROCEDURE
1. Define inputs to walkthrough
Before the CW session, the usability professional is
responsible for defining the important user task scenario or
scenarios and producing a task analysis of those scenarios
by explicating the action sequences necessary for
accomplishing the tasks in the scenarios. Wharton et al.
should be used as a resource for determining how to decide
on the scenarios and how to describe the task sequence.
2. Convene the walkthrough
The first step is to describe the goals of performing the
walkthrough. Namely, the walkthrough is an opportunity to
evaluate the user interface in terms of learnability. This is
the first opportunity to address SC 3 - Design
defensiveness, by defusing defensiveness on the part of any
team members. It is important that the usability professional
points out that learnability is only one aspect of usability,
and that the team recognizes that learnability may have
been traded off for other aspects of usability. Nonetheless,
there is inherent value in knowing when users may
encounter problems learning an interface as the issue could
be explicitly addressed elsewhere, for example, though
marketing or the help system.
A CW session is analytical in nature, and therefore lacks the
definitiveness of an empirical usability tests. In light of the
CW method's tentative nature, specification owners may
resent absolute proclamations that "this is a problem". The
usability specialist should, therefore, take care to use softer
language, like "this is a potential problem, we need to think
about it". Constant reference to the tentative nature of the
finding should help defuse defensiveness.
The usability professional then points out for the first time
that the CW is an evaluation session, not a design session,
and goes on to describe the process of walking through the
task sequence and answering the two questions for each
step (See table 4). The usability professional then gives an
example of an action sequence from software not currently
under consideration and that has plausible answers to the
two questions, and the team is encouraged to produce those
answers. Then the usability professional gives another
example, one without plausible answers, and the team is
prompted to try to provide answers. For each example, the
usability professional should model the format that the data
is captured in before proceeding with preparing the team for
the CW.
Table 4
2 questions from the streamlined CW
1. Will the user know what to do at this step?
2. If the user does the right thing, will they know that they
did the right thing, and are making progress towards their
goal?
After describing what the team will do during the
walkthrough, describe what the team will not do during the
walkthrough. This is the first opportunity to directly address
SC 2 - Lengthy design discussions, and indirectly address
SC 3 - Design defensiveness. In particular, the usability
professional explains that if the team finds a step with
possible learnability issues, they will note the possible
problem and move on to the next step, but they won't
redesign the interface. Furthermore, the usability
professional should explain that if the team encounters a
gap in the design (for example when it is not clear from the
specification what action sequence the user is supposed to
perform), the team will note the gap and move on, but they
won't stop and design the missing actions. Also, if a design
idea is suggested, the team may briefly discuss the design
idea, note it, and then move on, but the team will not flesh it
out. Lastly, if the task analysis appears to be faulty, or only
describes one of multiple possible paths towards achieving
355
[Spencer, 2000 from Wharton et al., 1994]
1. Define inputs to the
walkthrough
2. Convene the walkthrough
3. Walkthrough the action
sequences for each task
4. Record critical information
5. Revise the interface to fix the
problems
9. DESIGN HEURISTICS
• Provide prompts to help designers generate alternatives that vary in
nature, discouraging fixation and encouraging divergent patterns of
thinking [Yilmaz, Daly, Seifert, & Gonzalez, 2011; Yilmaz, Seifert, & Gonzalez, 2010]
• Derived from empirical evidence of industrial and engineering
designs [Daly et al., 2012; Yilmaz, Christian, Daly, Seifert, & Gonzalez, 2012; Yilmaz & Seifert, 2010]
• Validated through a range of product analysis, case studies, and
protocol analyses, in both educational and professional contexts
[e.g., Yilmaz & Seifert, 2009; Yilmaz et al., 2011; Yilmaz et al., 2010; Yilmaz et al., 2013; Yilmaz, Daly,
Christian, Seifert, & Gonzalez, 2014]
10. Property Definition Design Heuristics cards
Form Form of the product
#32: Expand or collapse
#38: Impose hierarchy on functions
#55: Repurpose packaging
Function Functions embedded in the product
#5: Adjust function through movement
#16: Bend
#50: Provide sensory feedback
Temporal
Use/function of the product over time
Relation to sociocultural environment
#13: Apply existing mechanism in new way
#21: Change product lifetime
#46: Mimic natural mechanisms
Use/User
Situated use of the product
User interactions with the product
#9: Allow user to customize
#10: Allow user to rearrange
#40: Incorporate user input
System
Context in which the product is used
Systems/services the product relies on
#24: Contextualize
#28: Create service
#29: Create system
HEURISTICS BY CATEGORY
12. EMPATHIC
WALKTHROUGH
1
Define inputs to the
walkthrough
Identification of users, problem definition, and
concept sketch
2
Convene the
walkthrough
Paired students
3
Walkthrough the
action sequences
for each task
Role-play or “talk through” each other’s concept
with a user story
4
Record critical
information
Record parts of the design that are confusing or
strange, that don’t appear to work correctly, or
otherwise seem inappropriate for the user
5
Revise the interface
to fix the problems
Generate alternatives or additional concepts that
address user concerns
25. DISCUSSION
• Even without prompting or explicit training, all participants were
able to tell a credible user story
• Students were generally not able to exhaust their ideas in the
10-15 minute period provided
• Design Heuristics were primarily used when the students got
“stuck” on a piece of critical information
• Categorization of critical information was generative, promoting
conversation about concerns or issues
26. SO WHAT ABOUT EMPATHY?
• Our goal was to foster an empathic connection between the
designer, their solution, and ultimately the end user
• The empathic walkthrough pointed out areas where their
knowledge of the user or use context was deficient
• Empathy displayed was most often cognitive knowledge about
what the user was feeling, with occasion articulations of the
emotional feeling itself
• No instances of participants responding with compassion
(i.e., product-centric, not user-centric)
28. COLINGRAY.ME
DESIGNHEURISTICS.COM
THANK YOU
This research is funded by the National Science Foundation,
Division of Undergraduate Education, Transforming Undergraduate
Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
(TUES Type II) Grants # 1323251 and #1322552.